| Native Name: | dxʷʔaha |
| Native Name Lang: | lut |
| Languages: | Lushootseed |
| Religions: | Traditional ethnic religion |
| Related Groups: | Other Lushootseed-speaking peoples, such as the Upper Skagit peoples; Samish people, Nooksack people |
The Nuwhaha (;) were a historic Lushootseed-speaking people in the Skagit River valley. The Nuwhaha primarily lived along the Samish River, as well as the coastal areas between Bay View and Bellingham.
The Nuwhaha were historically a powerful and warlike people, but they were decimated by smallpox epidemics in the 18th and 19th centuries. Eventually, they were pushed inland by wars with the Samish people. In 1855, the Nuwhaha were signatory to the Treaty of Point Elliott.
Today, Nuwhaha descendants are members of the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe,[1] Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, and the Samish Indian Nation.[2] Although there is no distinct Nuwhaha entity today, some Nuwhaha descendants enrolled in federally-recognized tribes still maintain their traditional identity as Nuwhaha.
The Nuwhaha are also erroneously known as the Upper Samish (although they are not to be confused with the Samish people, who speak the North Straits language).[3] Nuwhaha has also been spelled Nuwha’ha, Noo-wha-ha,[4] Noo-wha-ah, Nuwaha, and Duwaha.
Their endonym in Lushootseed is .
The Nuwhaha were a Lushootseed-speaking Coast Salish people, a group of culturally and linguistically related peoples in the Salish Sea. Although they were historically independent, they have been classified variously by anthropologists and historians as a part of the Lower Skagit, Upper Skagit, or even Samish.
Legally, the Indian Claims Commission found that the Nuwhaha were separate from the aboriginal Upper Skagit peoples, however, the modern Upper Skagit Indian Tribe maintains that it is the political successor to the Nuwhaha.
The Nuwhaha were located north of the Skagit River, with their villages primarily located along the Samish River and nearby areas. Due to their proximity to the Upper Skagit peoples, they maintained close ties with the neighboring peoples of the Skagit River. Nuwhaha territory included two large prairies, now called Jarman (or German) Prairie, Warner's Prairie, and Young Prairie, where women would go to harvest roots. In total, the Nuwhaha once occupied a swath of land from Bellingham to Bay View, including Lake Samish and parts of Lake Whatcom. The exact north-south boundaries differ according to different records. According to Susie Sampson Peter, Skagit storyteller, the Nuwhaha once controlled the area from Samish Island to Whatcom Creek. According to her son, Swinomish historian Martin Sampson, the Nuwhaha once had the area from south of Bay View to Bellingham Bay, at the Nooksack River.
The Nuwhaha also occupied Chuckanut Bay, Samish Bay and Bellingham Bay, alongside the Nooksack, Samish, and Lummi peoples.[5] They had two large forts, one at the mouth of the Samish River that could defend against invaders, and one at a high, rocky hill on Jarman Prairie, to which warriors would retreat in case the first fort became overwhelmed.
Nuwhaha villages were generally built around fishing sites. The Nuwhaha had several villages in the vicinity of the Samish River:
| Baslatlaus | Bay View, Padilla Bay | Two longhouses | |||
| Duwachubub | On Edison Creek near Bow | Chadaskadim was from this village | |||
| Belfast, on Friday Creek | One longhouse. Wiped out by a smallpox epidemic in the 1830s. | ||||
| Jarman Prairie, on the Samish River | Wiped out by a smallpox epidemic in the 1830s. | ||||
| Hacubthluk | Warner Prairie | The headman of this village was Statileius, also known as "Mowitch Man". | |||
| Stick Samish | South end of Lake Samish | One longhouse | |||
| [6] | Lake People | Lake Whatcom, near Park (likely at Fir Creek) | Mixed Nuwhaha-Nooksack village. Sometimes considered as independent from the Nooksack and Nuwhaha. Last occupied around 1860. |
The Nuwhaha were struck by epidemics which arrived starting in the 1700s. The first epidemic left many remianing on the lakes and prairies, who were less affected due to their inland residencies.
The first Europeans to record their encounter the with the Nuwhaha were the crew of José María Narváez and the Santa Saturnina around 1791. When they arrived in what they called the "Seno de Padilla" (Padilla Bay), they could see many people who were gathering shellfish, likely from the village .
According to Martin Sampson, the Nuwhaha were a large, powerful, and warlike tribe prior to the arrival of Europeans. In the early 1800s, under the leadership of Chadaskadim I and Chadaskadim II, they made war on peoples as far south as the Puyallup, and reaching as far north as Vancouver Island. At some point, the Saanich invaded the territory of the Nuwhaha, killing Chadaskadim II and taking his head back to what is now Sidney. In retaliation, the Nuwhaha, led by a man named Sathill, invaded the Saanich at Sidney, in an effort to repatriate the head of Chadaskadim II. The invasion was not successful, as although they had burned all the houses at Sidney, only a few were killed, they were able to take no slaves, and the head was not returned. According to tradition, the head of Chadaskadim II still remained somewhere in Sidney in 1972. The descendants of Chadaskadim II include members of the Swinomish Reservation, as well as the historian Ruth Sehome Shelton from Tulalip, while the descendants of Sathill include other Swinomish residents such as the Sampson family. Eventually, the Nuwhaha were pushed further inland by incursions from the Samish.
In the 1830s, the Nuwhaha were decimated by another epidemic. The epidemic reached every village, and reduced the Nuwhaha population to around 200 (from 1000 pre-epidemic). One man from the village near Bow went to visit his relatives at the Jarman Prairie village. He found all the occupants dead, save for his baby niece, who he found still in her mothers arms. After placing her in a shelter away from the village, he burned the houses. He also found all the occupants of the Friday Creek village dead, and burned that one as well. After burning his clothing and the clothing of his niece, they returned together to a shelter near his village, where they were quarantined in a shelter. After they had washed for several days, surely free of smallpox, they returned to his village at Bow.
On January 22, 1855, the Nuwhaha were party to the Treaty of Point Elliott. Pateus, a famous Nuwhaha leader from the Bay View village (who was described as a "sub-chief" of the Nuwhaha by the treaty commission), signed the treaty for the Nuwhaha.[7] Pateus, whose wife was Samish, was also one of the men authorized by the United States to sign the treaty for the Samish people.
During treaty times, some Nuwhaha were organized around the prophet Stababutkin, alongside the Upper Skagit. Stababutkin himself was the son-in-law of Pateus.
By 1918, the Nuwhaha living along the Samish River largely had assimilated into the Upper Skagits, while the coastal Nuwhaha were assimilated into the Samish.
The Nuwhaha spoke the Lushootseed language, the same as their Upper Skagit neighbors.